CATACOMBS OF PARIS. WRETCHEDLY as London is provided, the credit of the burial-ground a marvel with cemeteries, Paris was in a much "Car atropos la mate gloute, In 1440 the Bishop of Paris, Denis des Moulins, raised the burial fees, at which the people murmured, and resented the imposition, as they deemed it, so strongly that they entered into a combination, and|| during four months no person was buried there, and no funeral service performed over those who died, a revenge for which the Bishop excommunicated them all. This quarrel did not continue long, and as generations after generations were piled one upon another within the same ground, the inhabitants of the neighbouring parishes began to complain of the great inconvenience and danger to which they were exposed; diseases were imputed to such a mass of collected putridity, tainting the air by exhalations, and the waters by filtration, and measures for clearing out the cemetery would have been taken in the middle of the sixteenth century, if some disputes between the Bishop and the parliament had not prevented them. To save || lous power of consuming bodies in the short space of nine days was imputed to it, as Hentzner tells us when he describes the place as Sepulchrorum numero et scelestis admirandum. The mode of interment was of the most indecent kind, not in single graves but in common pits. "I am astonished," says Phillip Thicknesse, writing from Paris, "that where such an infinite number of people live in so small a' compass, they should suffer the people to be buried in the manner they do, or within the city. There are several burial pits in Paris, of a prodigious size and depth, in which the dead bodies are laid side by side, without any earth being put over them till the ground tier is full; then, and not till then, a small layer of earth covers them, and another layer of dead comes on, till, by layer upon layer, and dead upon dead, the hole is filled with a mass of human corruption, enough to breed a plague. These places are inclosed, it is true, within high walls; but nevertheless, the air cannot be improved by it. The burials in churches too often prove fatal to the priests and people who attend, but every body and every thing in Paris is so much alive that not a soul thinks about the dead." Mr. Thicknesse was mistaken in one point,-there was no intermediate earth between the layers of the coffins; they were closely packed, one tier above another, in pits thirty feet deep and twenty square, and when the pit was full it was covered with a layer of soil, not more than a foot in thickness. These fosses communes were emptied once in thirty or forty years, and the bones deposited in what was called Le grand Charnier des Innocens, an arched gallery which surrounded the burial place, having been erected at different times, as a work of piety, by different citizens, whose names, and sometimes their escutcheons were placed upon the parts which they had founded. One of these pits, which was intended to contain two thousand bodies, having been opened in 1779, the inhabitants of the adjoining streets presented a memorial to the Lieutenant General of the Police; they stated that the soil of the burial-ground was raised more than eight feet above the level of the streets and the ground floor of the adjacent houses, and represented that serious consequences had been experienced in the cellars of some of the houses. The evil indeed was now become so great that it could no longer be borne. The last grave-digger, Francis Pontraci, had, by his own register, in less than thirty years, deposited more than 90,000 bodies in that cemetery; for many years the average number of interments there had been not less than 3000, and of these from 150 to 200, at the utmost, were all that had separate graves; the rest were laid in the common trenches, which were usually made to hold from 12 to 1500! It was calculated that since the time of Phillippe Auguste 1,200,000 bodies had been interred there, and that it had been in use as a cemetery many ages before his time. Thomas Brown, and a mode of preparing it by Lord Bacon; and scientifically, because the fact had long been familiar to the grave-diggers in Paris, and also among the lower classes of this country. We ourselves well remember the prejudice which existed among them against using spermaceti in medicine, before the discovery was made at Paris, because they said it was dead man's fat. The common people of Paris regarded this burial-place with so much veneration that some danger was apprehended, if any accident should provoke their irritable feelings during an exposure which no precaution could prevent from being shocking to humanity. Every possible precaution, however, was taken. The work went on by night and day, without intermission, till it was necessarily suspended during the hot months; and it was resumed with the same steady exertion as soon as the season permitted. Religious ceremonies had not at that time lost their effect upon the Parisian mob: and the pomp with which some of the remains were removed, and the decent and religious care with which the bones and undistinguished remains were conveyed away, reconciled them to the measure. The night-scenes, when the work was carried on by the light of torches and bonfires, are said to have been of the most impressive character-crosses, monuments, demolished edifices, excavations, coffins, and the labourers moving about like spectres in the lurid light, under a cloud of smoke. M. Robert, and other distinguished artists of that day, painted some of these scenes. A memorial upon the ill effects which had arisen, and the worse consequences || which might be expected to arise from the constant accumulation of putrescence was read before the Royal Academy of Science, in 1783, by M. Cadet de Vaux, who held the useful office of Inspecteur Général des Objets de Salubrité. The Council of State, in 1785, decreed that the cemetery should be cleared of its dead, and converted into a market-place, after the canonical forms which were requisite in such cases should have been observed: the Archbishop, in conformity, issued a decree for the suppression, demolition, and evacuation of the cemetry, directing that the bones and bodies should be removed to the new subterranean cemetery of the Plaine de Mont Rouge, and appointing one of his Vicars-General to draw up the proces-verbal of the exhumation, removal, and re-interment; and the Royal Society of Medicine appointed a committee to explain the plans which should be presented for this extraordinary operation, and superintended a work as interesting to men of science as it would have been shocking to common spectators. It is well known that the sub-mory of persons cut off in the flower of stance which is denominated adipocire was then scientifically re-discovered: rediscovered, we say, because the existence of the substance had been known by Sir It appears that the bills of mortality at Paris hold out a tremendous lesson of morals to the Parisians, if, as may be fairly inferred, they agree in the results with the tomb-stones of the different cemeteries. In the burial-ground of Montmartre, which is the deposit for the gay part of Paris, the purlieus of the Palais Royal, the rues St. Honore, Vivienne, Richelieu, and Montmartre, the Boulevards, and the Chaussée d'Antin, nine tombs in ten are to the me their youth. But in the burial-ground of Pere la Chaise, which serves principally for the sober citizens of Paris, the inhabitants of the Marais, and of the Fauxbourg St. Antoine, nine out of ten record persons who have attained a good old age. In both cases this fact relates to subjects in easy or affluent circumstances, and the difference of mortality is solely attributable to the difference between a dissipated and a regular life. If nosological tables had been kept in different places, and in different parts of the world, with the same care as meteorological ones, how many more important results might have been deduced from them! It is said that insanity is seldom known in Spain, and rarely or never among private soldiers or sailors. The latter fact is easily explicable; military and naval discipline acts upon those who might be disposed to madness like the perpetual presence of a keeper. To explain the infrequency of this dreadful malady in Spain, would require a more intimate knowledge of the people than a stranger can possibly obtain. Something, however, may be ascribed to general temperance, and to the little use which is made of ardent spirits; and it should be remembered that convents often supply the places of madhouses, and that downright lunacy passes for high devotion and miraculous grace. The monuments in the new Parisian cemeteries are generally in good taste, better than is generally found in England. The inscriptions are sufficiently French in sentiment. The following is upon one of Bonaparte's Generals, who is made to say, "Dans toute ma vie "Je n'ai fait tort a personne." One of these burial-grounds is planted with fruit-trees, which is objected to as rendering the general effect moins attristante. We are told that a former possessor of Ermenonville planted dead trees in his gardens, pour inspirer la philosophic. But the oddest display of this kind was exhibited by M. de Brunoi, who put his park in mourning for the death of his mother, and had barrels of ink sent from Paris that the jets d'eau might be in mourning also. Count Schimmelmann's monument for his wife was all that was wanting to make the scene complete: that nobleman placed the monument upon a spring, and made the water spout from an eye, that it might be a symbol of his excessive grief. It may still be seen not far from Copenhagen, where it is known by the name of the Weeping Eye. The Parisians have committed no follies of this kind; but they have acted like themselves in making show-catacombs and cimetières ornés. A becoming respect to human nature was manifested in removing the remains of the dead with decency, and preparing a receptacle for them; but it would have been better to put them out of sight, and wall them up in the quarries, than to arrange them in patterns along the wall, skulls and thigh bones, like muskets and pistols in the small armory at the Tower. Such exhibitions cannot have a salutary tendency; they foster that disease of mind in which melancholy madness has its foundation; they harden brutal natures, and are more likely to provoke the licentious to impious bravadoes than reclaim them. Exposures of this kind originated in the spirit of monachism. They are unfeeling and unnatural. Public feeling would not tolerate them in Protestant countries: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Burial-grounds à-la-pittoresque, laid out for a promenade, are not more consonant to good feeling. This invention is indeed original to the people of Paris. ACCOUNT OF THE CINNAMON TREE. THE Cinnamon woods in Ceylon are thirty in number, and are the absolute and entire property of the Dutch company. Besides, there are many more woods in the middle of the country, the cinnamon of which the Emperor of Ceylon is obliged to deliver to the company. The cinnamon tree, for which this island is se famous, is frequently of a great size; some trees are, however, middling; the leaves bear a great resemblance to a lemon or laurel leaf in thickness and colour; the latter, however, have but one rib, but the leaves of the cinnamon tree have three. The leaves, when they first burst forth, are as red as scarlet, and smell, when rubbed between the fingers, more like cloves than cinnamon. This tree is very thick set with branches and leaves, and bears a white sweet-scented blossom, which is followed by a fruit of the size of an olive, of a yellow colour, and ripe in the month of June, but neither in smell or taste at all resembles the inner bark. The ripe fruit, when boiled, yields a very fine oil, which, when cold, has the appearance of tallow, and is used in medicine as well as to burn in lamps, though none of the natives dare use it for this latter purpose, only the Emperor himself. This tree grows wild in woods like other trees, and is in no higher estimation among the natives. It has a double coat; the outer rind not having the least flavour or other properties of cinnamon, is previously taken off with a knife; but the inner, which is the real genuine cinnamon, is with a crooked pointed knife first cut circularly, then longitudinally, and, after being peeled off, is laid in the sun, by which means it becomes rolled up, and takes the form in which we have it in Europe. camphor water; nay, they even understand the method of extracting the very best camphor from it; but this must be done with the greatest privacy, as it is prohibited by the company under the heaviest penalties, in order to prevent the camphor trade in Borneo and Sumatra from being hurt by it. The time for barking the tree commences in June and July, and sometimes even in August. As soon as the barkers, who are brought up to this business, come out of their villages for this purpose, every district sends a detatchment of soldiers with them, in order to guard the wood when they are at work; and this partly on account of the roving native mountaineers, who sometimes fall on the barked cinnamon and make it their booty, but still more for keeping an eye on the barkers themselves, that they may not be able to conceal any of the cinnamon. The bark that is peeled during the day must be carried every evening to the Dutch guard belonging to their respective districts; it is there cleansed, well dried, and made up into bundles, and afterwards taken in close cases to the factory, where they are weighed and received by the company as payment of the assessment or tax, imposed on these people by government. A man must have a very good hand indeed, that can gather thirty pounds of cinnamon in a day; whence it is easily cal When the tree is once deprived of its bark it never grows again, but from the fruit that has fallen off new trees shoot up in its stead; which, in the space of six or eight years, may be peeled again. The wood of this tree gives not the least smellculated how many persons it will take to when burnt, being soft and white like our fir wood. The inhabitants make use of it for their houses and furniture: from the root their physicians draw an excellent gather ten or twelve millions of pounds, and that too of the best, for what is brought in is looked over before it is weighed, and the refuse of it is destroyed. FUGITIVE POETRY. TURN NOT AWAY.-A SONG. BY MISS MARY LEMAN REDE.-(PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED.) TURN not away those orbs of light, Nay, rather turn them frowning to me; Rapt in the charms that round thee play, I feel the wild electric ray Strike to the fated breast its brightning. COME O'ER THE HILLS.-A SONG. I'll fondly whisper o'er to thee To this fond heart, and you will see To this dear arm of thine, love, And heaven smiles bright above me O break the stillness with that sound Most sweet, and say "I love thee!" Nay, bush! who could mistake those eyes, All language would profane them O may no tear, till Fanny dies, A moment dim or stain them. Then like the tree, to which has clung "It is it is a glorious day "The foeman mingles with the slain !" A thousand shrieks now pierc'd the airAnother charge-the battle o'er :The clouded field again was fair, The cannon's thunder ceas'd to roar. Many a brave one strew'd the plainAmong them, too, the warrior lay! In death he grasp'd his sword, whose stain Declar'd the deeds he'd done that day! Secure he sleeps within the grave (Immortal is the warrior's name), He died a hero! and the brave, His deeds shall crown with lasting fame! LINES, Suggested by the sight of an ancient and ruined HIGH on the mountain's steepest side, Stretch'd their large limbs, Herculean mould, No joys-no glad triumphant sounds, Where are the sons of valour gone? The storied marble, rais'd on high, THE HEART OF SORROW. I KNEW a heart-its texture such Has blanch'd those wounds in tears of blood; |